Well… maybe not entirely physically better. I had a couple late nights, and an incident when I tried to make a root beer-and-rum at 3:00pm which was too strong and knocked me out in the middle in the afternoon because I’m a fucking lightweight, but my muscles are all relaxed, all my nagging soreness is gone, and I feel fit. It’s no wonder that Britain requires employees in all companies to take two weeks off per year!

The best news is, my vacation may not be entirely over. Sure, I have to work on Saturday and Sunday, but due to stupidity that goes beyond the scope of tonight’s precap, Wal-Mart tends to encourage people to keep few hours in January and February (hence why the vacation was given to me in the first place). It’s entirely possible I may get a second (albeit smaller) vacation later this month or in early February.

Either way though, it’s been great. I didn’t get nearly as much done on my book as I wanted to (one night of reading and reviewing, one night of discussing concepts with my illustrator, and, uh, nothing else). But I caught up on IGN assignments, I caught up on housework, and the only reason my laundry isn’t done is because the complex’s dryer is busted. All in all, a good two weeks.

Starting Monday, it will most likely be a return of actual precaps since I’ll have stories and observations from interacting with people again, rather than trying to massage Absolutely Nothing into 300 words. In the meantime, we’ve got SmackDown! Let’s roll…

Segment 1: Tonight is “Sin City SmackDown,” since we’re in Las Vegas. But we’re not worrying about that right now, because Daniel Bryan hits the ring to address Big Show shoulder-checking AJ into the floor last week. DB is sure that Big Show nailed her (metaphorically) on purpose because he still can’t get over losing the World Heavyweight Title to DB in only 45 seconds.

DB can’t get over this because he’s never been told by any girl “I love you” before, which is so totally super-touching… and he has a “great admiration” for her too. She may not be here tonight, but when DB has to defend his title against Mark Henry tonight, she’ll be in his corner in spirit. For some reason, that topic makes the crowd start booing him and “You suck!” chanting him.

He reports that Show isn’t here tonight, and it’s a good thing, or DB would totally kick his ass. But Show really needs to just do the decent thing and resign.

Segment 2: We cut to the back, where Teddy Long is apparently operating a casino in his office. Alicia Fox manages to roll dice on a craps table that sends half the chips in a stack flying, and I don’t know whether that was on purpose or not, but it was hilarious.

Camera pans to T-Long, who stands beside what was formally called the RAW Roulette wheel. Stupidity ensues as he interacts with Aksana, but then Cody Rhodes comes in. He puts himself over with two sentences, then makes a spin. It lands on “Player’s Choice,” which in this case just means “Pick your opponent.” Hornswoggle is in the room holding cards at the craps table—I’ll wait a second so that can sink in a moment—and Cody picks him as his opponent.

Pre-Segment 3: Cody makes his standard entrance. Horny tries is but is clearly hesitant. It doesn’t help that Cody gets out of the ring and punches Horny in the face. Justin Gabriel (and apparently what he calls hair) hits the ring to make the save, then lightly taunts Cody. Cody accepts the challenge, but makes a special point to say that it’s totally non-title.

Segment 3 [Singles Match]: Cody Rhodes defeats Justin Gabriel (w/ Hornswoggle) by pin. Solid match, but a little short: these guys are both solidly technical, and I wouldn’t have minded seeing them go another five minutes. No noteworthy spots, and the match ended with the Cross Rhodes.

Segment 4: Mark Henry is in the back, and T-Long is having to patiently explain to him the concept of what a wheel is. Henry says that this whole Sin City SmackDown thing is stupid, and T-Long is stupid for putting AJ in harm’s way last week because it’s totally his fault, and tonight it’s totally his fault for putting DB in harm’s way… but putting him against Big Show, you see.

Ugh. What happened to the three or four weeks of Henry cutting promos that you could at least tolerate, rather than just regurgitating the Cliff’s Notes of his booking meetings?

Henry eventually decides he can’t figure out how the wheel works, so he makes T-Long do it for him. It lands on “Lumberjack Match,” which Henry is okay with. He calls DB a “pipsqueak champion” who is “going to enter the Hall of Pain”… a statement which draws cheers, so I guess the effort to turn Mark Henry is paying off, if they weren’t just adding crowd cheers in post-production. I remain unconvinced, but then again I’ve long since passed the point where I’m considered jaded.

Pre-Segment 5: ROOOSSSAAA!!!

…Followed by (a shortened version of) the Siva Tau as the Usos hit the ring. That’s a combination I can live with any wrestling day!

Also, we’ve got some self-product placement as Booker T pimps a new action figure wrestling ring… though I suspect that even Booker knows how shitty the product is anymore and he brought this along to give himself actual entertainment. In this case, it means that Zack Ryder just clotheslined Big Show who was setting up John Cena for a Samoan Drop! It’s totally plausible!

Segment 5 [Tornado Tag Match]: Primo & Epico (w/ My Rosa Mendes) defeat the Usos by pin. Solid match, but like the opener match, a little too short. No overly noteworthy spots, but it was a fantastic face-paced match for how long it lasted. One of the Usos did a splash off the top to Epico, but Epico was lying parallel to flight path. So the Uso in question simply did a 90-degree turn in midair to land it correctly. Not shown was the Uso apparently flipping Physics the bird on his way down.

The Uso did a pin attempt, but just before that, the other Uso was distracted by My Rosa outside the ring. It gave Primo a chance to shove him kidneys-first into the apron, then slide in the ring and made the save for Epico. From there, Primo merely hit the backstabber and made the pin, and that was that.

And because I seem to also be a Barbie Dress-Up expert when it comes to the divas, I have to point out that My Rosa was wearing a slightly unfortunate top. When you already have boobs that big, a push-up corset just makes them look, uh… awkward. Still, the effort was appreciated.

Very appreciated.

Segment 6: Back from commercial, and Aksana and T-Long are still doing stupid things in the back. Sheamus appears to break up their retarded double-entendres, and Aksana spins for him. The wheel lands on “Tables,” and his opponent is Wade Barrett. More Aksana stupidity, and we’re out.

Segment 7: Lilian Garcia announces that the following is a dance-off, and I immediately start to cry as I have visions of Brodus Clay. Reality imitates insanity, and my fears are answered as the Funkasaurus hits the ring. (Oh god, I just used that term unironcially. I need help.)

The segment is interrupted by a commercial, and on the other side of it, Vickie Guerrero hits the ring. I thought for a moment she was going to put a stop to this, but instead, she announces that she’s Clay’s opponent. After using the term “fo-shizzle,” she gets started. A neurological disorder takes over, and… you know what? I’m not recapping this.

Clay wins, but his backup dancers helped out. One of them was named “Naomi”… is that the same Naomi from Girl NXT? The one with the bangs? I wondered where she’s been. [Ed. Note: the other one is the girl from Tough Enough. Not Alicia Fox's sister. The other one. The one who seemed too stupid for words, and was eliminated the very first week. WWE: hiring contest losers since the 2003 Diva Search!!!]

Wait, why is William Regal coming out here? He has a mic and pleads that we stop “mocking the poor buxom wench,” who then grabs Regal’s pocket square and rather grossly blows her nose in it. He escorts her out of the ring.

Or starts to, when Brodus stops him and calls him a “funky chicken,” but it certainly didn’t come out sounding like “funky.” Regal decides to accept the challenge despite being in a full suit. Regal makes an ass out of himself, and for some reason Clay decides to give him a running crossbody, which Regal takes sorta wrong and painfully. Why is this cheer-worthy, exactly?

Ugh. WWE owes me the last five minutes of my life back.

Segment 8 [Tables Singles Match]: Wade Barrett defeats Sheamus. Solid match, match of the night so far. I said that I was eager to see these two go at each other given their off-screen history, and man: fantastic work. It’s no technical marvel, but it’s as good and varied punchy-kicky as you’re going to get without introducing weapons.

Well, the tables were technically a weapon, and man, did they ever use them. Tons of table teases, nothing especially noteworthy, but an exciting match from bell to bell. At the end, Sheamus had set up a table in the northwest corner and was ready to finish off Barrett. But then Jinder Mahal came down to run interference. He got punched in the face, but it was enough of a distraction for Wade to recover and throw Sheamus shoulder-first through it.

Post-Segment 8: Wade left in peace, happy that his Barrett Barrage continues. But Jinder refused to let sleeping dogs lie, so he set up a table in the southeast corner and wanted to do the same thing. But when he helped Sheamus to his feet, Sheamus returned the favor with a standing Blarney Boot, followed by a spinebuster through the table. Yay moral victory, but it’s still a loss to Barrett in the record books.

Pre-Segment 9: We’re having a singles match that’s a, uh, flag match. Apparently whoever grabs their flag and “respects it” from their corner poll first wins.

Segment 9 [Flag Singles Match]: Ted DiBiase defeats Hunico (w/ Camacho). Go America!

Decent match, mostly an excuse for big falls since both guys were shoving each other off the top rope constantly. Ted DiBiase came up lame after a fall from the top rope to the mats outside, and he was limping thereafter. He managed to hit Dream Street anyway after some more back-and-forth, then climbed up and retrieved Old Glory.

Segment 10: We’re back in T-Long’s office, and Drew McIntyre is with him. Drew is sorta begging for his job, but T-Long ultimately just fires him. Drew wants to cry, but Santino actually stops him. He says that since he beat Drew Macintosh three weeks ago, some people are saying it was a lucky victory. (Drew: “Yeah, they are saying that!”) So Santino wants to prove it’s not a fluke by taking him on one more time, and if he loses, maybe Drew shouldn’t be fired after all.

T-Long accepts the stipulations. Drew’s game for it too and spins the wheel, and it’s going to be a blindfold match.

Segment 11 [Blindfold Singles Match]: Santino Marella defeats Drew McIntyre by pin. Nice comedy match, with Santino even whipping out a blindfold (actually more like an executioner’s hood) for Cobrasock.

The match was sloppy, but sloppy in an organized way. Drew’s biggest mistake came after the fight spilled outside. They moved in opposite directions, but Drew backed gently into the southeast ring post. Thinking it was Santino, he whipped around and went for a hard punch, smashing his forearm directly into the post. Man, that looks like it would hurt.

At the end, with Drew further stunned (he had just crotched himself on the top rope due to missing a big boot), Santino readied the Cobra and used a bit of intelligence to locate Drew. He stuck a finger out and started pointing in a random direction, slowly rotating clockwise. The crowd immediately picked up on what he was doing and became his compass, cheering louder and louder as he pointed at Drew, then quieted as he pointed past him. Santino came the other way to, uh, triangulate his position I guess, then struck true with the Cobra. Drew takes the pin, and the fourth loss in as many weeks.

Segment 12 [Lumberjack Singles Match for the World Heavyweight Title]: Daniel Bryan and Mark Henry wrestle to a no contest. Decent match, even considering Mark Henry was involved, though a little dry. The story here was that DB basically got his ass continually handed to him, but every time he tried to leave the ring—whether on his own or because Henry chucked him—he was thrown right back in. DB made no friends by screaming at the lumberjacks to stop, to which Wade Barrett hilariously replied, “We’re just doing our jobs!”

The match continued until at one point, DB was flung out of the north side of the ring. The lumberjacks swarmed him, and he had had enough, so he started fighting back. That was dumb, as he was quickly mobbed and tossed back up on the apron. Henry hip tossed him into the ring, but DB countered with a dropkick that sent Henry to the floor.

The lumberjacks, showing no loyalty, started attacking Henry as well. They stood him up and tried to get him into the ring, but he was way too heavy. DB decided to “help” at this point by taking some cheap kicks toward Henry, but some of those “accidentally” missed and nailed the lumberjacks in the face.

Well, the lumberjacks are no one’s bitches, so four of them—Wade Barrett, Cody Rhodes, Ted DiBiase strangely enough, and a fourth guy that I don’t remember—slid in the ring and started attacking DB. This is a no-DQ match, so it’s okay, and the ref just looks on. Meanwhile, Henry shoves the group off him, then gets in the ring and “saves” DB because he wants to hurt DB himself.

But again, the lumberjacks are no one’s bitches, so they all swarm and beat the hell out of Henry. The ref bails, and then—for reasons I still don’t understand—the lumberjacks start beating the hell out of each other. DB crawls away and out of the ring, and we get an absolute mess of a brawl between the ropes. As Michael Cole tells us so he can smack us in the head with his anvil, this is awfully reminiscent of what the Royal Rumble is going to look like.

As Henry manages to get out of the ring himself with the brawl still going on around him, DB looks back at the ring and gives a slight smirk as boos come his way. But that smirk is quickly covered up, and he turns his back as he rushes to the back.

Post-Segment 11: In the black-covered backstage area prior to the gorilla position, DB is catching his breath when Teddy Long appears. DB suddenly loses the smirk and demands to know what the hell that was about, and whether T-Long is going to force him to compete on the moon next. T-Long has a better idea: DB defends his belt at the Royal Rumble against Show and Henry in a steel cage triple threat match. Holla!

Final Thoughts: Meh. The matches were all pretty entertaining in their own ways, though I miss having a divas’ match. (Although, frankly, if they’re all going to be 20 seconds long and retarded, maybe it’s better this way.) But it was all the stuff between the matches that was just awful, and made me consider pulling a Xiahou Dun to give at least my left eye a break from the pain.

Eh… I watch WWE mostly for the action anyway, which I know is sort of idiotic. In tonight’s case, the matches rose above the idiocy that surrounded it, which is nice. But it causes me to give a dual grade tonight.

Have a good weekend guys, and I’ll see you on Tuesday for RAW.

Episode Grade: C+ for the matches and Post-Segment 12, D- for everything else